Trip Wasted Without
by sundialsandsmiles
Summary: It's a two hundred foot monster of a metal contraption, and it most certainly is a big deal.


Anonymous asked: _Felix and Helena - hold my hand_

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"Brother Sestra must come with," Helena says, tugging on his arm like it's no big deal. It really is though. It's a two hundred foot monster of a metal contraption, and it most certainly is a big deal.

"Ooh, no. No! Brother Sestra is _not _– Helena! Helena, let me go. Let-" Felix digs his heels into a patch of grass, but Helena, stronger than she looks, topples him forward easily.

"Sarah!" he shouts, stumbling after Helena until he manages to right himself and resume his resistance. "Your crazy sister is trying to get me killed!"

A few feet away, Sarah abruptly rises from the bench she had been sitting on, clasping her daughter's hand in her own and tugging her up gently. Kira scoots herself off the edge of the seat, taking in Felix's situation with Helena and sending a conspiratorial glance up at her mother.

"Sorry, Fee! Kira needs the little girls' room," Sarah shouts over her shoulder.

"Are you fu-" Felix seals his lips around the word before it can slip out and shoots a guilty glance over to Kira. She seems none the wiser. "Effing kidding me?" he finishes, and Sarah turns her head to _wink_ at him.

"Don't wait up for us!"

"Thank you, Sestra! We will see you later!" Helena throws her hand up in the air to wave as Sarah and Kira dart off in the opposite direction.

"You really are the worst sister ever, Sarah!" Helena starts walking toward the ride again, jerking his arm along with her, and he levels a glare at the back of her head. "On second thought, second worst," he amends.

Helena pulls him to the end of a line that is far too short for Felix's liking. He tilts his head back to take in the height of the ride, and he can barely see the top from where he's standing. The glare from the sun in his eyes does nothing to help his reverse vertigo.

"Shite," he says under his breath. He finds himself clutching at Helena's bicep in spite of the fact that she's the whole reason he's freaking out in the first place. "Why me? Helena, why does it have to be the scariest bloody ride in the whole park?"

"Trip wasted without."

"Maybe from where you're standing!"

"We stand in same place."

Felix looks at her, takes in her deadpan expression, and groans. His head follows an eyeroll and settles toward the sky.

"Please, Felix?" she says. "It isn't fun alone." He glances down at her again, and the pouty look on her face catches his sympathy before he can look away again.

"Oh _god_," he says, and heaves a sigh of resignation. "_Fine. _I can't believe this…"

Helena's face lights up instantly, and a second later Felix is being smothered by a mass of bleach-fried curls while a pair of arms just about squeeze the air from his lungs. He endures it for a few moments before he leans back gingerly and attempts to extract himself.

"Okay, that's enough of that." It takes Helena a moment to catch on and unlatch herself, but fortunately the awkward moment is broken by the voice of one of the men attending the ride. Except now that Felix has taken a moment to assess the situation, it is most definitely an _un_fortunate interruption, because people are streaming out of the gate surrounding the ride, and by the look on Helena's face, the two of them are definitely going to make it into the next batch of passengers. To say that Felix is mortified is a fundamental misuse of the word.

Helena moves to take a step forward and he leans back, throwing all of his weight toward the ground, not caring in the least if she lets go and drops him. The jerk jars her but does nothing to dislodge her grip on his wrist.

"Brother Sestra promised!" she grunts, and with just one yank, he's falling in the other direction. His heart flies up into his throat and for a moment it's hard to breathe, but she stops his fall and sets him back on his feet.

"Oh god, oh god," he mumbles, head craning back with his eyes fixed on the tower as he moves on wobbly legs toward the ride. The attendant beckons them forward into a pair of seats on the end of the platform and hardly pays them any attention as Helena drags him forward and pushes on his shoulders until he falls into the seat. Felix reaches for the safety bar and pulls it down over his head until it presses him as snug against the seat as it will go as Helena hops into the seat next to him.

The attendant comes by to check all of the harnesses and then steps off of the platform. Felix's knuckles have gone white from gripping the handholds on the harness across his chest, and his heart is thumping almost painfully against his ribs. He lets out a cry when the the ride gives a jerk as the motor engages, which turns into an embarrassingly high-pitched scream as the gondola rockets upward.

The ground shrinks below him, and as the ride nears the top and begins to slow, a hand enters his view from the left. With hardly a thought as to who it belongs to, Felix snatches it with his own and _squeezes_. The seat drops from beneath him and the bars over his shoulders drag him down with the ride. His stomach flattens like a pancake against his diaphragm as it drives air from his lungs in a jumble of noises he can't even hear over the air rushing in his ears. Felix hasn't even thought to look down and see how close the ground is getting by the time the brakes engage, and then it's not even as close as he thought it would be.

The gondola rises again, but only for a moment before it falls into another bounce. Like aftershocks. Felix lets his grip on Helena's hand slacken, and her head of blonde hair pokes around the bars holding them in. There's a close-mouthed grin on her face, and Felix frowns at her through another bounce, until to his horror, he realizes that they're being pulled back toward the top of the tower.

The ride brings them all the way up to the top and anchors them there with a rush of compressed air to the brake. Nothing happens for a few long moments, and Felix can feel the imminent freefall prickling at his nerves like a predator lurking in wait. Helena's grin has turned rather predatory itself, teeth bared and tongue poking around between canines and incisors.

"I hope you bite your tongue!" he shouts at her, and just as the last word leaves his mouth, the ride plunges downward. His jaw snaps shut; pain blossoms on his tongue and the taste of copper swirls in his mouth.

At the end of the ride, while they're approaching the bottom the tower too slowly, Felix releases Helena's hand. She shakes it out a bit, and he's honestly a little surprised that all her bones are still intact with how hard he'd been squeezing it. He's not going to apologize though. It's _her_ fault that her hand's gone numb.

With the clank of the latch, the harnesses holding them are lifted, and Felix is out of his seat and off the platform as soon as the bar clears his head. Helena trails behind him with a smug look on her face. "Wasn't so bad, was it?"

"You are insane," Felix says, punctuating every syllable.

"We could hear you screaming before we even walked up," Sarah taunts from the other side of the gate, with Kira giggling at him from her side.

"You could not!" Felix squawks, narrowing his eyes at her. Sarah raises an eyebrow at him and he scoffs. "Whatever, Sarah, it's your turn to babysit the _child_. Kira and I are going to go get some scones. Come on, Monkey!"

"Bring us back some!" Sarah shouts as Kira runs over to take Felix's outstretched hand.

"Let's play shooting duck game," Felix hears Helena say as they're leaving, and he glances over his shoulder to see her dart off toward a game booth.

"Oi," Sarah shouts, running after her. "That is _so_ not fair with you!"


End file.
